


I'm Running Out of Heart Today

by Equinoxe



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4265871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Equinoxe/pseuds/Equinoxe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Q saw 007, colours got more vivid.</p><p>Blue and coral sky of that painting, the gallery’s wallpaper in teal, the dark navy coat that fitted the agent oh so perfectly, and those blue, blue eyes that he only caught a glimpse of. Everything was a burst of hues, powerful and bright, even so that when he thought back to the day, as he often did, it would feel like he could have seen the colours of those snarky words if he had squinted. </p><p>He would fall for James Bond long after, but if he was being very honest to himself, he was far gone from day one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Running Out of Heart Today

**Author's Note:**

> So, um, first fanfiction in this fandom, and in English, ever. This is completely not beta-ed. Comments and kudos are very welcomed. Thank you for reading.

 

The first time Q saw 007, colours got more vivid.

 

Blue and coral sky of that painting, the gallery’s wallpaper in teal, the dark navy coat that fitted the agent oh so perfectly, and those blue, blue eyes that he only caught a glimpse of. Everything was a burst of hues, powerful and bright, even so that when he thought back to the day, as he often did, it would feel like he could have seen the colours of those snarky words if he had squinted.

He would fall for James Bond long after, but if he was being very honest to himself, he was far gone from day one.

 

.

 

_Double-o-seven, I’m your new quartermaster._

 

Q liked to think himself a knowledgable person. He was recruited as MI6’s quartermaster, the job that he knew wasn’t beyond his capability. Yet nothing had prepared him for the recklessness that was 007. The agent was finest at his creativity in throwing himself into danger, and Q spent a fair share of his time trying to outwit Bond’s techniques of getting killed.

Q didn’t normally guide agents through all missions, only the most classified, most dangerous ones. And since the world had always been kind to him, 007 was the agent who worked on most of those cases. Perhaps it was the way Bond always chose the most heedless way to complete the mission, leaving collateral damage every-fucking-where on his wake.

 

Sometimes Bond would disappear from his radar entirely, he was declared death twice, and took down a 10-storeys apartment once. Those were the times Q would push himself the hardest, just so he could yell at the agent as fast as possible.

Bond would listen and hum silently while Q threw astonishing array of insults at him. The twat knew how much he hated to show he actually _cared_ , Q knew from his smirks and broken equipments returned.

 _Two could play this game_ , Q thought. As long as Bond would come back whole and breathing, making Q see shades again, he could pretend it didn’t scare him shitless.

 

.

 

 

It was after the second time that Bond was declared death that they slept together for the first time. Bond was waiting in front of his door in one evening. Q was too numb and shaken by the fact that the man who rendered his world completely different was gone, dead, until he was _not_. So he let Bond inside and awkwardly stood in the middle of the room.

Bond came to his view a while after and caressed his face gently. The touch was so gentle Q wanted to weep, to throw a tantrum, to hit the guy in the face. Because _this_ , this wasn’t fair. No one should be able to push him off the cliff for _months_ and drag him back to the ground with a touch. A goddamned touch.

Q didn’t say it out loud. He didn’t even have an energy to glare. He just leaned into the touch, and closed his eyes when Bond kissed him.

 

 

.

 

 

The morning after was not too bad. Q woke up in his room with a person in his kitchenette. Bond made him tea and toast, a small gesture that Q quietly appreciated. The quartermaster stared into his mug and hated himself a little to have thought that the tea leaves looked off their usual colours.

Bond left for work first and Q allowed him. He stepped out of the room as perfect as he had been when he came it. Q stood up and stretched. A pleasant dull ache was still palpable. He was not quite sure how to properly handle the situation, or rather, how to feel about it.

Bond’s scent lingered on his pillows for almost a week. Q tried his hardest not to indulge in it.

 

Other than that, everything went on.

They went back to being 007 and quartermaster. Bond had the Queen and the country to protect, and Q had a certain agent’s arse to save.

 

.

 

 

After that, Bond kept coming back. Q thought it was for the fact that nothing was addressed about their arrangement. Q was a convenient sex when Bond was in London. There was no need to pretend to be someone else, no need to watch his back in every move. Q imagined Bond slept more easily in his flat, relaxed more truly.

The sex was a good stress relief. Orgasms were great. And Q got to be close, intimate even, to James Bond, the person who he had been madly in love with, without apparent reason.

 

So Q wasn’t going to complain. He was going to take all Bond was giving.

 

.

 

Good days were the days that Q didn’t have to witness 007 being tortured, or shot, or the days that Q had to fight the urge to punch Bond in the face when his weapons were returned severely ruined, just because it was not someone else who returned them, for the agent himself was too hurt to fend off medical staffs to grace his presence in Q’s headquarter.

Good days were scarce, and bad days were too often for his liking.

It was difficult at first, pretending that he wasn’t shattered seeing crimson liquid overflowing Bond. He had heard stories of how 007 cheated the death in the most fascinating ways, but he couldn’t buy any. No matter how many times it happened.

 

 _It is so inconvenient loving someone_ , he thought, _because when you love someone, you keep being terrified of losing them_.

 

.

 

 

 

Sometimes Q wondered what was it about 007 that had him skydiving to the core of the earth. Was it the way he did everything with such arrogance? Was it the way he dove head first to the smell of risk? Maybe Bond was God’s way to compensate gifting him with his brain. If so, he was _very much_ going to tell God when he died that it had been bloody over-compensated all along.

 

Because how was it fair that God made him fall into such reckless, cold-hearted, unpredictable, yet infuriatingly charming creature?

 

.

 

 

The fifteenth months they had started having their arrangement, 007 was declared dead. _Again_ , Q wanted to put, but he too wasn’t so sure Bond would ever come back this time. He had replayed the footage where they last saw 007 perhaps thousands of times already and he couldn’t fault any frame.

The shot was real, the blood was real, and even if they were not, the geography was there to ensure the demise. Q doubted if God himself would survive that.

There was a funeral this time, albeit very uncharacteristically of MI6. Moneypenny was the person in charge of the eulogy. She wrote something along the line of how dull it was to live and work in the world without Bond.

 

And how dull it was, how _faded_ it was.

 

.

 

 

Bond took his one bloody year to show his bloody face again at MI6. By that time, Q had already made himself accustomed to the new 007, and a couple of new 00’s. Q had already accepted that he would be living the same world, without the person he loved too much.

When Bond walked into his headquarter, it was that _bloody_ ship all over again. There was a burst of spectrum he never really saw recently, his mustard cardigan looked a little too red, and those blue, blue eyes he never thought he would see again.

He wasn’t prepared for this, he buried Bond, with gravestone and everything. He wasn’t prepared to fall again, for the very same person.

 

So Q did the best he could, he stared dumbly and kept quiet.

 

.

 

 

 

His love wasn’t magnificent in any sense. It was just a light contact when handling Bond the equipments, a lingering scent of bergamot in the finely tailored suits, a soft chuckle through the comm during a mission.

Bond was a strong man. Every move of his was calm and calculated. Although sometimes when they were together, secluded, Bond would hesitate a little to reach Q, would struggle with some words, would kick one of coffee table’s legs and hurt himself.

Q loved those moments dearly. It was those moments that drag him deeper into the mud of madness. He would commit them to his memory and held on those littlest things tightly.

 

Because that could be all he would ever have.

 

.

 

 

If the sex right after the Great Resurrection of James Bond (as many insisted) was borderline desperate, none of them mentioned it afterwards.

Bond kissed him on his temple before he left the bed.

 

A pebble was thrown in to fill the gigantic hole in his heart.

 

 

.

 

 

The codename 007 somehow was assigned back to Bond. He started going on endless missions again. It was ridiculous that it took less than two months for everything to return to its normalcy. Q was the quartermaster in front of his massive monitors. 007 was an on-field agent with explosives and seduction.

 

Equipments were ruined, then repaired, then completely ruined, then created anew.

 

Banters were back being a regular in Q’s life, so as flutters in his heart, so as colours.

 

.

 

 

 

 

 

_I love you._

 

Q wanted to say. But there were a lot more important things than that to say.

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

Then it happened.

 

It happened when they were lying in his bed, enjoying their post-coital time silently. Bond grabbed Q’s hand from where Q was tracing random pattern on his skin. Q flinched involuntarily as if he was caught doing something bad.

He looked up to see those blue, blue eyes starring at him intently. And as a person whose profession was stealing someone’s secrets, recognition shone in Bond’s eyes. The look made Q tremble.

“Christ, Q”

Bond said without breaking neither the eye contact nor the grab, his brows furrowed.

“You cannot just give like this. You’ve got to learn to take, or at least to bloody ask for it.”

The older man stilled as if waiting for Q’s answer. Inside Q’s head was a mess, his mind reeling fast on hundreds possible ways this could be answered.

In the end, he just slowly nodded.

 

.

 

 

Life went on after that just as before. But now Q knew what Bond’s flat looked like, and which TV programme he watched. Q now also knew which restaurant was 007’s favourite and which wine he preferred.

Bond still went on missions a lot. Q still yelled at him for missing equipments. But he hadn't cut the location signal in five months. Q counted that as an improvement.

 

Then one day, Q said what he had always wanted to say, because he felt that maybe this time, it was important enough.

 

It was for Bond. He smiled and kissed Q gently.

 

Apparently, the colours could get even more vivid.

 


End file.
